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By using their knowledge and experience to support up-and-coming entrepreneurs, mentors are helping drive growth in companies that can create jobs and generate revenue. Mentors are impacting their local economy and making the region they live in a more exciting and vibrant place. That's a pretty fulfilling way to donate your time

One of the most common reasons for mentoring programmes failing is that they forget to train mentees sufficiently. Programmes that train only mentors deliver less than half the benefits, on average, than those that train both participants.

When you look at any given organization, you will most likely find that there are more men than women in the role of mentor. This is odd, considering that women are perceived as ‰ÛÏgivers‰Û and ‰ÛÏnurturers‰Û, when mentoring is all about giving and nurturing.

It‰Ûªs been my experience that women who hold C-Level positions may do a good job of managing the performance of those who work directly with them, but in general are not active enough in mentoring those individuals outside of their direct reports.

Yoda, whom Luke meets on an isolated planet in the galaxy, initially appears to be an unlikely guide for such a momentous journey. Yet the elfish character puts up with Luke's initial insolence and arrogance, takes him under his pointed ears and manages to bring out the Knight that is within him. Yoda demonstrates, as the mentor to mentors, how to give support to a promising individual, how to offer challenges that permit one to learn and grow, and how to provide vision so that the "mentee" gains confidence and, eventually, independence.

In a poll taken during one of our recent webinars, 66% of attendees stated that they use a combination of mentoring and training in the workplace. This combination of methods is just one way in which you can free up your training budget while generating an even better developmental result.

In 1998 we conducted an on-line survey to define what partners felt were the attributes of effective mentoring relationships. A resounding YES came from responses to this open-ended question: Is there a difference between a mentor, coach, and supervisor?

Employees and managers the world over dread this ritual and therein lays the main problem: We have institutionalized the giving and receiving of feedback. We save up our comments and document all the things we note about a person's performance. And then, like a big cat ready to pounce, the manager brings a hapless employee into the office and springs a year's worth of "constructive criticism" onto him or her.

Mentoring is a collaborative learning relationship between individuals who share mutual responsibility and accountability for helping the mentee work toward the fulfillment of clear and mutually defined learning goals. Mentoring is used to assist individuals at specific stages of development or transition and lasts for a sustain ed but defined period of time. The mentoring relationship provides a developmental opportunity for both parties and can thus be of mutual benefit.

Mentoring has gained attention and popularity as a powerful tool to enable the careers of those advancing through the ranks in all types of organizations. Those with access to mentoring consistently are known to benefit from their involvement in these relationships. Research shows that people with mentors report higher salaries, more frequent promotions, higher job satisfaction, stronger commitment to their organization and are less likely to want to leave their jobs than those without mentors.